Describe a journey that did not go according to plan.
A narrative card in its purest form, and one of the most reliable cards in the test for producing natural past tenses. Everything depends on choosing a journey with a genuine complication rather than a minor inconvenience.
The task card
Describe a journey that did not go according to plan.
You should say:
- where you were going
- what went wrong
- what you did about it
and explain how you felt about it afterwards.
How long you have
- 1 minute
Preparation
The examiner hands you the card, paper and a pencil. Make notes — a few words per cue point, never sentences.
- 1–2 minutes
Your long turn
Speak until the examiner stops you at two minutes. Finishing early is the most common self-inflicted problem in Part 2.
- 1–2 questions
Rounding off
The examiner may ask one or two short follow-up questions, then moves straight into the Part 3 discussion on the same theme.
Part 2 takes three to four minutes in total. The whole Speaking test runs 11 to 14 minutes across three parts, and Part 3 that follows lasts four to five minutes.
How to approach this card
Choose a journey with real jeopardy — a missed connection that mattered, a breakdown somewhere remote, arriving in the wrong city — rather than a train that was twenty minutes late. Without stakes there is no story, and without a story you will finish at eighty seconds.
Set the scene efficiently and slow down at the complication. The most common structural error on this card is spending forty-five seconds on the packing and the airport and then covering the actual disaster in ten. Aim to reach 'what went wrong' by about the thirty-second mark and let the middle breathe.
The last bullet asks how you felt afterwards, which invites reflection rather than more narration. Note one honest feeling and one thing you would do differently — that gives you a natural third conditional to close on, and it stops the answer simply stopping when the story ends.
Ideas you can actually use
Three angles on this card. Pick the one closest to something real in your own life — invented material is what makes candidates hesitate at ninety seconds.
Journeys with real stakes
- Travelling to something unmissable: a wedding, an interview, a funeral, an exam
- A journey where you were responsible for someone else
- One where the failure happened at the start, so the whole trip becomes improvisation
Slow the middle down
- Reach 'what went wrong' by about the thirty-second mark
- Give the alternative route in stages — train, then ferry, then bus, then walking
- Include one stranger, because strangers are what people remember
Reflect rather than summarise
- How you felt at the time versus how you feel about it now
- A third conditional: if I had left ten minutes earlier
- End on something other than 'I made it' — the person who helped, or what you learned
What your one minute of notes should look like
Not sentences — a few words per cue point. This is the level of detail sixty seconds actually buys you, and it is enough to speak from for two minutes.
- WHERE — Manchester → a wedding in west Ireland; I had a reading, so not optional
- WRONG — flight cancelled 6am, next seat 2 days later
- DID — train to Holyhead, ferry, bus, then 14km with no taxi; a farmer drove me
- AFTER — panic then, but what I remember is the farmer. Never learned his name.
Model answer
Speak your own answer first. Examiners are trained to spot memorised speeches and mark them down — use this to study structure, pacing and naturalness, never to recite.
Show the model answer
This was about three years ago. I was travelling from Manchester to a wedding in a village in the west of Ireland, and I was one of the readings, so arriving wasn't optional. The plan was a flight to Dublin and then a coach across, roughly four hours. The flight was cancelled at about six in the morning — not delayed, cancelled, with the next available seat two days later, which was of course after the wedding. I was standing in the terminal at half six in the morning realising I was about to fail at the one thing I had been asked to do. So I did the only thing I could think of, which was to get on a train to Holyhead and take the ferry instead. That meant about three hours across north Wales, then a three-and-a-half-hour crossing, then a bus, then — and this is the part I didn't plan for — a fourteen-kilometre gap between the last bus stop and the village, at nine at night, with no taxi service operating. I ended up walking about half of it before a farmer stopped and, with no real explanation, drove me the rest of the way. I've never learned his name. I got there at about eleven at night, roughly seventeen hours after leaving, and the wedding was the following morning, so I made it with time to spare in the end. Looking back on it now, what I remember isn't the stress — it's that farmer. At the time I was in a complete panic, and if you had asked me that morning I'd have said it was a disaster. And it makes a good story now, obviously. But I think what actually stayed with me is how easily the whole thing was rescued by somebody who had absolutely no reason to help me.
Why this works: The stakes are established in the first fifteen seconds — a reading at a wedding — so every subsequent problem matters. The complication arrives fast and the middle section is where the detail sits, exactly the right weighting. Narrative tenses are handled without strain, and the final bullet reframes the story rather than summarising it, which is a distinctly high-band move: the answer ends somewhere the listener did not expect.
Useful vocabulary for this topic
- everything that could go wrong did
Idiomatic opener that sets up a story of escalating problems.
- we were stranded
The precise verb for being stuck somewhere with no way onward.
- it was touch and go
For a period when the outcome was genuinely uncertain.
- to make a run for it
Vivid phrasal verb for a desperate attempt to catch something.
- in the end we had no choice but to
Introduces the decision cleanly under pressure.
- looking back on it now
Signals the reflective final bullet.
- it makes a good story now
Natural closing line acknowledging the gap between then and now.
The same phrases in a full sentence
A phrase list is only useful if you know how the words sit around it. Say each of these aloud once before you attempt the card.
- we were stranded
- “We were stranded in the terminal at half six in the morning with no alternative offered.”
- everything that could go wrong did
- “It was one of those journeys where everything that could go wrong did.”
- in the end we had no choice but to
- “In the end I had no choice but to take the ferry, which added nine hours.”
- it makes a good story now
- “It makes a good story now, although nobody was laughing at the time.”
Part 3 discussion
After your long turn the examiner moves into a four to five minute discussion on the same theme, working from two related discussion topics with about three questions each. The first stays close to your own experience; the second widens out. Answer with reasons and examples, not one-line replies.
Travelling
Example questions
- 1What kinds of journeys do people in your country make most often?
- 2How stressful do you think travelling has become?
- 3Is it better to plan a trip in detail or leave it open?
Transport and the future
Example questions
- 1Should governments invest more in railways than in air travel?
- 2Can you suggest why people enjoy telling stories about journeys that went wrong?
- 3How do you think people will travel long distances in fifty years?
More on how this family of cards is discussed: Events and experiences.